Philosophy in the Roman Empire: Ethics, Politics and Society

✍ Scribed by Michael B. Trapp

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 300
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Michael Trapp draws on a broad range of sources for this study of Imperial period philosophical thought. The distinctive doctrines of the many individual philosophical schools are outlined, as well as the choices they presented to the potential philosophical convert. Trapp also addresses the elitist status of philosophy itself and the ways in which it may have posed a threat to other values.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
List of Abbreviations
Preface
1 ‘Ethics’, ‘Philosophy’ and Philosophia
The history and internal geography of philosophia
The point and balance of philosophia: Imperial-period perceptions
The ‘dominance’ of ethics
Authority and division
Philosophia in the community
Who qualifies?
2 Perfection and Progress
Perfection: ideal states of the person
Lives and progress
Conclusion
3 The Passions
Background
Emotion and its control in the Imperial period
Conclusion: continuity and change
4 Self, Person and Individual
The soul and the real person
Programmes of self-discovery?
The self in therapeutic advice
The Self and the Will?
Afterword
5 Self and Others
The Stoics
Peripatetics, Platonists, Epicureans and Cynics
Special issues
Conclusion
6 Politics 1: Constitutions and the Ruler
The political background to Imperial-period theorizing
Constitutions
7 Politics 2: Good Communities
Dio on the Black Sea
Harmony and order
Collective moral character
Sanctions: law, punishment and instruction
Constituents of the community
8 Politics 3: Philosophia in Politics and the Community
Entertainment, leisure and responsibility
Philosophoi in formal politics
Conclusion
9 Philosophia and the Mainstream
Politics
A more general lack of alignment?
The paradox of an educational setting
An uncertain status?
Conclusion
Appendix: Bio-bibliographies
Bibliography
Index of Works and Passages
General Index